Covalent attachment of 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal to erythrocyte proteins

It has been established that the covalent modification of proteins occurs in vivo as a consequence of reaction with reactive lipids such as 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (HNE). The fact that HNE occurs in blood under physiological as well as pathophysiological conditions suggests that erythrocytes undergo modification by HNE. Here we describe the immunochemical characterization of HNE-treated erythrocytes by demonstrating the Michael-type HNE addition to both membrane and cytosolic proteins. Exposure of erythrocytes to HNE (0-0.5 mM) for 2 h resulted in HNE labeling of multiple membrane proteins. Pretreatment of erythrocytes with a sulfhydryl reagent, N-ethylmaleimide (NEM), resulted in a significant decrease of HNE attached to the proteins, suggesting that HNE primarily reacts with the sulfhydryl groups of erythrocyte membrane proteins, whereas enhanced HNE labeling of the membrane proteins was observed when the erythrocytes were pretreated with H2O2 (0.1-5 mM) for 15 min. On the other hand, highly selective modification of a 30 kDa protein was observed in the hemolysates of erythrocytes treated with HNE. The protein, which represents a major intracellular target of HNE in erythrocytes, was identified as carbonic anhydrase, based on the observations that (i) a reverse-phase HPLC analysis of the chloroform/ethanol extract of HNE-treated erythrocytes detected two major proteins, which cross-reacted with anti-carbonic anhydrase antibody as well as with the anti-HNE adducts antibody, (ii) the chloroform-ethanol extraction of authentic carbonic anhydrase gave a similar HPLC pattern, and (iii) the HNE treatment of erythrocytes resulted in the partial inhibition of the carbonic anhydrase activity.